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Witchunt V1.0 (WW Variant)

Pre-Preface: This is a WW game for 17 people (there are theoretically 21 roles, but I am limiting it to 17 for this game). Sign ups are completely open and first come first serve.

Preface: I never do any sort of b-modding. What you see is 100% what you get, no false or misleading information is ever presented to players by myself as moderator.

Overview

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Witchhunt is a game in which the Innocent majority tries to root out the Witch minority that lives among them. The game alternates Day and Night phases, starting with Day. Each Night the Witches communicate with each other a small amount and choose a target to kill by plurality vote. Each Day the entire Town (including those secretly Witches) discusses the events and holds their own majority vote to lynch a suspect. Voting for yourself or voting not to kill will be permitted in both cases, and be treated as normal ballot options. Neither role nor faction alignment of a player is revealed on death, unlike some versions. The game ends with a victory for either side when the other is eliminated. (or when this becomes logically unavoidable)

Voting
At any appropriate time, a player may cast their formal Vote for both Town Votes or Witch Votes. Please be explicit; in form games bold, and in real-life games point. You are permitted to change your Vote if a majority has not yet been reached.

The moment a majority is reached for a Town Vote, it ends. In a majority is not reached by the end of a Day, the phase will be extended 24 hours to hold a runoff vote between the parties with the most votes. Failure to vote at all before the end of this time will be considered a "no lynch" vote.

Guardian Angels
This is a very significant (and very beneficial) alteration to the game suggested by Chris Barney at GDC when we were brainstorming ways of dealing with elimination. Dead players are not eliminated from the game, but instead remain as Guardian Angels. Dead players are aware of all Night activity. Each Night, before the Witch Vote (doesn't matter in forum game), all dead players Protect one living player by plurality vote. A Witch Vote targeting this player will fail to kill--the fact that the particular player was targeted will be announced publicly.

Guardian Angels cease when the game gets down to 4 players or fewer. Note that Witches serve as Angels as well, but continue to support their faction. Dead Witch players may be able to mislead and manipulate the other Angels.

Witch Sacrifice
If Witches vote to kill one of their own voting members, that is a Sacrifice. Witches can still make their normal kill, which will now ignore Protection. Only half of Witches are needed for a Sacrifice Vote; not a majority.

Cornered Spy Rule: If the Spy votes alone, it does not count if anyone is voting for him.

Suicide Rule: Witches (including Spy) can only die to non-Sacrifice votes if they vote for themselves.

Player Communication

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There are certain intuitive restrictions on communication between players.

Only living players may post in this thread

Player posts may not be edited.

Players may not post any images or non-text.

In addition, two rules which are not auto-enforced must be followed by all players:

Players may never privately communicate with each other or non-players concerning the decision-making of the game.

Players may not quote the Witch QT from this topic, either automatically or manually. (copy-paste)

This should be obvious, but you are encouraged to lie and manipulate your way to victory. Both factions benefit from deceiving the other. Anyone may at any time claim to be any role in the above communication, publicly or privately; unlike some versions of the game, the game design here supports this.

Spy Role:
One of the Witches in every game will be replaced with the Spy. The Spy is on the Innocent faction and should work to undermine the Witches.

Werewolf Role:
The Werewolf is neither Innocent nor Witch; he is his own third party and survives all Lynchings.
He also has an important ability: the power to Devour other players once per Day. To do so, he must publicly name another player's Role. If he is correct, the target is killed and the Werewolf is immune to all death until the next Day. Since the Spy technically has two Roles, he cannot be Devoured!

FAQ:

Spy
The Spy does not possess the special ability of whatever Witch he replaces, except for the Junior Witch. Remember, Witches can benefit massively if they sacrifice the Spy, and remember that the Spy will lose all 1v1 Witch Votes against him--think very carefully before deciding to come out. The Town needs him to stick around to defeat the Werewolf.
The Spy always Checks as "good" by the Priest.

Werewolf
The Werewolf cannot be Lyched, but can be killed by the Witches, the D.O.B., or by having a Lover get Lynched. (See Enchantress)
The Werewolf always Checks as "evil" by the Priest. (Like a Witch)

Devour rules: A werewolf gets one devour attempt a day. If he successfully devours somebody, then he is invincible until the next day.

Priest
The Priest is the most powerful Innocent role, alongside the Spy. His existence means the Innocent faction draws closer to knowing everyone's alignment each passing night, making it a race against time for both sides.
Each night, the Priest Checks a target living player. The moderator privately responds if the target is "good" or "evil". The Spy appears good, and the Werewolf appears evil. A good Priest will be cautious about revealing his identity and findings, since it may put himself and accidentally the Spy at extreme risk!The Junior Witch role appears good until she begins participating in Witch Votes, at which point she will appear evil.

Survivalist and Dirty Old Bastard
These two roles balance the Werewolf out. On one hand, players cannot distinguish between a Town Vote failing to kill the Survivalist or the Werewolf. On the other, the D.O.B. gives the Innocents a single last chance to kill the Werewolf...if he feels like it. Note that the Survivalist can survive *any* sort of death, and the D.O.B. can also use his kill to take out defensive Witches that are in some way immune to Lynching.

Leftovers Rule: If the werewolf devours a survivalist, he still becomes immune to death, and the survivalist still lives. Of course, he's likely to be devoured the next day anyway, but it does delay for the priest/witches to act.

Benevolent Old Dame
The B.O.D. grants Protection the Night after she is Lynched. If she dies in any other way, there is no effect.

Martyr and Leeroy Jenkins
These players should use their interrupting abilities in a timely manner, before the game advances to the next stage. Both may be used after a completed vote. The Martyr's ability may be used on any death, Day or Night.

Spiritualist
In forum games, the Spiritualist is merely informed of the final Guardian Angel votes at the end of night (total number of votes for each player).
In real-life games, the Spiritualist may observe their proceedings. If any dead players attempt to pass information to the Spiritualist, anyone invovled is subject to be removed from the game entirely by the moderator.

Assassin
After a Sacrifice, if the Assassin is alive the moderator will announce that the Witches may select two targets to kill. Both these kills will ignore Protection. If the Assassin himself is sacrificed, the effect still occurs.

Enchantress
At the start of the game, the Enchantress may select two Lovers. These players are informed of each other's identity and faction. (Spy and Junior Witch appear as "Innocent", like Priest Checks.) If one is ever Lynched and killed, the other is immediately killed as well. Death by any other cause does not trigger this effect, nor does a failed Lynching. Note that the Enchantress does not have to select Lovers.

The Enchantress is immune to all Lynchings as long as both Lovers are alive. All other causes of death still work.

Jacob's Rule: When a player is Lovers with the Werewolf, they are now on the Werewolf faction.

Junior Witch
The Junior Witch's identity is unknown to the other Witches (and Spy!) until she chooses to join them. In forum games, the Junior Witch should indicate this to the moderate at the appropriat time. The Junior Witch Checks as "good" to the Priest until she joins the Witch Circle, and will appear as "Innocent" to a Lover.

All roles are added to the game in order; an 11 person games has roles 0 through 11, for example (zero being spy replacing one of the witches).

The factions are intended to balance each other out; without witches, town has a limited chance to kill WW, without power townies around, WW has limited chances of finding out roles to devour and survive, and without WW, mass roleclaims lead to the witches downfall. Spy decimates witches but, with WW, it still hurts town chances to start mass revealing and, of course, witches can fake spyclaim anyway. Spy roleclaiming also means that he can't influence the vote towards killing WW.

All witches know their own role (Spy knows which witchrole he replaces, which is why he is card 0), but not the others. This can be revealed in witchchat freely, and obviously, lying is allowed.

Lovers have their own private chat as well.

8 person games should probably not include enchantress, simply because town has a horrible win chance if the WW is a lover, which happens 40% of the time.

Enchantress doesn't have to create lovers (this can allow witches to fakeclaim lovers). The Enchantress doesn't receive protection if this is the case.

Devil doesn't know whether the priest is dead or not checking a given night (so priest can fakeout to get the devil sacrificed as a spy, or the spy-devil can say the priest didn't check without being guranteed to die).

The method of how somebody died/didn't die is almost always obvious. Leeroy activation is known, judge is considered a lynch, lynching is obvious, witch NKs are known as witch NKs, DoB makes his own kill post, and lover suicide is identified as such. Only sacrifices and NKs are not distinguished.

WW can "fake" devour by PMing me beforehand and saying he doesn't really intend to devour. This is in order to prevent WW checking by asking everybody to devour the (mod confirmed) nun on D1.

Proxying votes to other people is completely legal, in town votes, GA votes, and witch votes.

Night actions can be qu

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eued and trigger conditionally, to prevent delay. For example, the martyr can send a conditional saying "If only one person is nightkilled tonight, and it isn't X, Y, or Z, I save them."

Lovers only commit suicide if one of them is lynched, not in other situations. If one of the lovers is a survivalist, he triggers his "extra life" if he still has it.

If, in an endgame situation people rapidly vote for somebody to prevent the WW having time to devour, he will be freely allowed to attempt a devour. This is to prevent the strategy of rapidly voting in order to kill the DoB before the WW gets time to react. Note: This is subject to moderator discretion.

Re: Witchunt V1.0 (WW Variant)

Confirmed roles are +/-- for town (-- after a certain point because you reach the WW nomming every day threshold), ++ for werewolf, - for witches.

Spy reveal (with or without roles listed) is ++ for town, + (or ++ with roles) for WW, -- for witches.

General ideas on roles are + town, = WW, - Witches

Accepted witch lies are - town, -- WW, +/++ Witches

Overall confusion is -- town, - WW, ++ Witches.

Basically, town works off having enough info to go on to kill the witches without WW getting to nom, WW works on having all roles revealed in some form or fashion, and witches work, as usual, by spreading confusion or deceit.

Re: Witchunt V1.0 (WW Variant)

In here as well
One question though, where is this communication for spirits and things taking place, PM is the logical place but it seems rather clumsy when the spirits are over 10 people. and how are you going to inform the spirits what they see of the other night actions that go on?

Re: Witchunt V1.0 (WW Variant)

Originally Posted by Istari

In here as well
One question though, where is this communication for spirits and things taking place, PM is the logical place but it seems rather clumsy when the spirits are over 10 people. and how are you going to inform the spirits what they see of the other night actions that go on?

Quicktopic. Free throwaway forums that are easily created. No account required, just type in a username.

This puts us at a good amount of players, though not at the full 17 yet.

Re: Witchunt V1.0 (WW Variant)

No real requirements, though I hope you make sure you understand all the rules. Since this is a fairly radical variant in design, I am expecting most of the players to be unsure of all the implications of the game's roles.